Carbine

One of the greatest racehorses and sires bred in the southern hemisphere ...more

A colourful character named Dan O’Brien bought the Musket colt he first named Mauser and then renamed Carbine at a Sylvia Park, Auckland, auction for 625 guineas. He was unbeaten in five New Zealand starts at two, and O’Brien took him to Melbourne as a spring three-year-old to race in the VRC Derby. Narrowly beaten – he was reputedly beaten by the jockey’s over-confidence – in the Derby, he won two races in Melbourne for O’Brien before being bought for 3000 pounds by Australian sportsman Donald Wallace. For Wallace he became the first true champion of Australian racing, transcending Victorian/New South Wales rivalries. He started 43 times for 33 wins, six seconds and three thirds, his stake earnings of 29,626 pounds a record for more than 20 years. The apogee of his racing career was the 1890 Melbourne Cup, which he won over a record field (38), with a record weight (10st 5lb, or 66kg) in record time. No horse had previously won with as much weight; no horse has since, in more than a hundred years. In the closing stages Carbine outfinished a lightweight named Highborn, to whom he was conceding 3st 11lb, or 24kg. Highborn later won the Sydney Cup with 9st 3lb! Carbine went to stud for four years in Australia, and sired the winners of more than 200 races. Then he was sold privately to the Duke of Portland, and, despite standing in England alongside the great St Simon, founded the triple Derby-winning dynasty of Spearmint, Spion Kop and Felstead. His blood flows through the veins of Nearco, Hyperion and all their great descendants.

Carbine was kindly sponsored by the Chianti Stallion Partnership. Chianti is an Irish bred 1998 bay stallion by Danehill from Sabbah. He stands at Te Runga Stud, Pukekohe. For further details contact Wayne Larsen (Studmaster) at 027-497-5115 or refer to websites www.terungastud.co.nz or www.chianti.co.nz.

Eight Carat

Shares with Eulogy the title of New Zealand’s greatest broodmare of the 20th Century. Bought by Sir Patrick Hogan along with foal Diamond Lover, one of five Group One winners produced by Eight Carat, the others being Kaapstad, Marquise and the champions Octagonal and Mouawad. Eight Carat’s Group One legacy has continued through sons, daughters, grandsons and granddaughters.

Eulogy

Eulogy was imported to New Zealand 1915, bred 13 winners of 70 races in foal. Her four best foals (Commendation, Esteem, Epitaph and Homage) between them won 10 three-year-old classics and 10 prestigious two-year-old races.

Eulogy's eight daughters bred some of the best racehorses of the era. The family has left a legacy with later descendants including champions Show Gate, Il Tempo, Kingdom Bay and Bonecrusher.

Foxbridge

Hard to credit nowadays, but the Waikato was something of a breeding backwater back in the 1930s when Seton Otway decided to broaden his breeding interests by standing a stallion or two.

His former dairy farm became Trelawney Stud and in 1935 he imported a stallion named Foxbridge who not only set Trelawney Stud on the path to fame but, almost single-handedly, turned the Waikato region’s previously modest status around. A two-year-old filly named Foxmond, at Te Rapa in November 1938, was Foxbridge’s first winner. The following season Foxbridge was sixth on the New Zealand sires’ premiership and with his third crop; in 1940-41 he was clearly on top. It was a position he was to hold for the entire decade; for 11 consecutive seasons in fact, a degree of dominance no other stallion in New Zealand’s history has been able to match.

Because of World War II, very few of Foxbridge’s progeny raced in Australia. Yet their earnings at the time of his death were a British Empire record. The progeny of Foxbridge were incredibly versatile. He had two-year-old winners, two-mile stayers and everything in between. He had firm-trackers, wet-trackers and there, too, everything in between. His daughters were greatly prized and most successful as broodmares while several sons, with limited opportunities, made a worthwhile contribution as sires. A single day’s racing, Cup Day at Ellerslie on Boxing Day of 1944, illustrates Foxbridge’s dominance of the era and the great range of his stock’s talent. On an eight-race card, his progeny won the two two-year-old races (five-furlong Nursery Handicap, White Blaze, and six-furlong Great Northern Foal Stakes, Al-Sirat); two one-mile (1600m) races, the Queen’s Plate (Hormuz) and Christmas Handicap (Exeter); the six-furlong Railway Handicap (Neenah) and the two-mile Auckland Cup (Foxwyn).

O’Reilly

O’Reilly is a brown horse foaled 1993, by Last Tycoon-Courtza. He was named after the Irish industrialist and famous rugby player Tony O’Reilly. His dam Courtza won the world’s premier 2 year old race - the Group I Golden Slipper in 1989 when ridden by Hall of Fame jockey Shane Dye.

O’Reilly had a brief but spectacular race career, winning four of only six starts including Group Ones Bayer Classic and Telegraph Handicap before running 2nd in the Australian Guineas.

He was awarded Horse of Year & Champion Sprinter-Miler titles for the 1996-97 racing season.

O’Reilly retired to Waikato Stud in 1997. To date he has won four NZ General Sire Premierships and is third on all-time sire of stakes winners behind the Hall of Fame stallions Sir Tristram and Zabeel.

O’Reilly was owned and raced by the Chittick family of Waikato Stud. He was trained by Hall of Famer trainer Dave O’Sullivan and Paul O’Sullivan and was ridden in all his races by Hall of Fame jockey Lance O’Sullivan.

Sir Tristram

Irish born stallion Sir Tristram has left an indelible mark on the Australasian breeding and racing scene.

The champion stallion, born in 1971, sired more than 130 stakes winners during his amazing stud career, 45 of those Group 1 winners.

By Sir Ivor out of the Round Table mare Isolt, Sir Tristram’s arrival in New Zealand in 1975 wasn’t greeted with the enthusiasm Sir Patrick Hogan had hoped for.

Although Sir Tristram’s pedigree carried impeccable bloodlines his conformation was far from perfect. Shareholders in the horse were quick to let Hogan know exactly what they thought and had he listened we may never have seen the phenomenal successes that the horse achieved.

Luckily for the ill-tempered stallion he had found an allay in Sir Patrick and the partnership that was to span 22 years, and put Hogan and his Cambridge Stud firmly on the map, had begun.

The success of his early runners saw a number of Sir Tristram’s sons, such as Sovereign Red, Dalmacia and Grosvenor take up stud duties in Australia and New Zealand from the early 1980s.

The victory of Grosvenor’s first crop son,Omnicorp, in the 1987 Victoria Derby saw even more demand for sons of Sir Tristram.

However, it was as a broodmare sire that Sir Tristram’s potential as a long term breeding influence was first realised.

His daughters have left Golden Slipper winners, Classic and Cup winners, super weight for age performers and even a Group winner at Royal Ascot in Kingfisher Mill.

Commencing his stud career in 1976 at Fencourt Stud, Hogan’s forerunner to Cambridge Stud, Sir Tristram stood for the princely sum of $1500. That fee in years to come would rise into the six figures.

Named Australia's Champion Broodmare Sire for the fourth time in the 1997-98 season with 132 winners, Sir Tristram is the brood mare sire of the winners of more than $50 million.

His influence in almost every major race in New Zealand and Australia saw him named winner of the Dewar Trophy for combined Australia-New Zealand progeny earnings a record nine times.

Six time winner of the Champion Australian Sire, he has the notable distinction of having sired three Melbourne Cup winners, a record recently emulated by his super sire son, Zabeel.

Not surprisingly, Sir Tristram provided the top-priced yearling at twelve New Zealand National Yearling Sales, from the early 1980's to the mid-1990's. His sale-toppers include the first seven-figure yearling ever sold in New Zealand; the colt from Surround sold for $NZ1.2 million to Mr Kobayashi of Japan in 1989.

With the assistance of his sons and daughters, Sir Tristram appeared in the pedigrees of one in four of the 67 Group One winners in Australia in the 1996-97 season. This bold statistic from the world’s second largest racing arena more than most demonstrates the might and power of Sir Tristram’s dynasty.

In 1996 a wide cross-section of the racing and breeding fraternity celebrated Sir Tristram’s 25th birthday at Cambridge Stud.

Less than a year later Sir Tristram was gone. Breaking his shoulder in a paddock accident, Sir Tristram was unable to be saved. He was euthanised on May 21, 1997.

Zabeel

Followed his great sire Sir Tristram at Cambridge Stud and in some respects outshone him. Still alive and active in 2013 aged 27, he has achieved four NZ and two Australian general sire premierships; 15 Dewar Awards (NZ and Australian progeny earnings combined); 43 Group One winners (two behind his sire) and 148 stakeswinners (Sir Tristram 130). He has sired three Melbourne Cup winners, four Cox Plate winners, successful sire sons and grandsons, and is an outstanding broodmare sire.